A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced their new OS, Windows Vista. It’s been heralded as “extremely pretty”, but pretty mundane beyond that. Alot of people, myself included, have basically pronounced it dead on arrival because of all the integrated DRM stuff which it sounds like will require new “DRM Hardware”, such as a new DRM-Compliant monitor. Sorry, but I like my nice 21″ monitor, I don’t need a new one.

But none of this deters Microsoft. In fact, it was just discovered that Windows Vista actually emulates OpenGL over DirectX. I quote:

Microsoft’s current plan for OpenGL on Windows Vista is to layer OpenGL over Direct3D in order to use OpenGL with a composited desktop to obtain the Aero experience. If an OpenGL ICD is run – the desktop compositor will switch off – significantly degrading the user experience. In practice this means for OpenGL under Aeroglass:
  • OpenGL performance will be significantly reduced – perhaps as much as 50%
  • OpenGL on Windows will be fixed at a vanilla version of OpenGL 1.4
  • No extensions will be possible to expose future hardware innovations

It would be technically straightforward to provide an OpenGL ICD within the full Aero experience without compromising the stability or the security of the operating system. Layering OpenGL over Direct3D is a policy decision more than a technical decision.

This is ludicrous. OpenGL is an important tool in CAD & Research Work, two of the biggest spending arenas in computers. And microsoft wants to isolate them, plunging them all back to Linux and Irix? Not only is this Bad for business, but it’s bad for OpenGL as now games will be forced to provide native DirectX support for performance.

I sense the console market & linux gaming getting a big boost with Windows Vista. That is, if Windows Vista doesn’t go the way of Windows ME.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • FriendFeed
  • MySpace
  • Netvibes
  • Ping.fm
  • Technorati
  • Tumblr